Installing one faucet aerator to restrict flow to 1.5 gallons per minute in kitchen sinks can reduce water usage by about 30,000 gallons, or a third per year. In hand-washing sinks, a faucet aerator that restricts flow to 0.5 gallons per minute can result in a 77 percent (about 10,800 gallons) water savings per year.
“Any restaurant that doesn’t install aerators, which can range in cost from around $3 to $15, is literally throwing money down the drain,” Oshman says.
Even more painful to Oshman than the many gallons of drinkable water being wasted at the sink is the amount being flushed down the toilet when a simple retrofit with a dual flush handle would make a difference. The GRA recommends the Upper Cut from Sloane Valve Company, which can save more than half a gallon per flush in liquid waste.
Low-flush toilets can save even more. Some models use only one gallon (as opposed to the current standard of 1.6) of water per flush. On average, that could save a restaurant more than 9,800 gallons of water each year. There is also a urinal model that uses only 1 pint of water as opposed to the usual 1 gallon. Go with a waterless urinal and the savings can add up to 40,000 gallons of water per year.
On his Web site, North Carolina Governor Easley recounts the conservation success story achieved by the K&W Cafeteria chain. The company was able to reduce the water use in one of its units by 9,000 gallons per day (a 75 percent saving) by instituting a variety of simple initiatives. Among the most basic of these measures was checking for and repairing leaks in water pipes, toilets, and faucets; installing aerators on all hand-wash and cooking faucets; setting ice machine optic sensors to minimum fill levels to provide the lowest possible daily requirement; thawing frozen foods in the refrigerator rather than under running water; and reusing rinse water from the four-compartment kitchen sink to mop floors.
At its Atlanta corporate offices and production facilities, Coca-Cola has demonstrated its support of the 10 percent water use reduction goal by shutting off its outdoor fountain at its headquarters building, canceling its annual fall landscape planting, and discontinuing the washing of its trucks. Residual water from the fountain was collected to water the valuable Japanese maples outside and potted plants indoors. The company is also planning to install more water-efficient fixtures in its restrooms and cafeterias, says Coca-Cola spokeswoman Kirsten Witt.
In 2004, Coca-Cola received the shocking results of a comprehensive water use efficiency audit, called AquaCheck. It was conducted at the company’s Atlanta production plants in conjunction with a team of water quality experts from the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
Compared to AquaCheck, any company’s standard internal audit or even one conducted by the IRS would “look like a pushover,” said Coca-Cola chairman and CEO E. Neville Isdell in a May 2006 speech about the program. The revelations were nothing short of stunning when the company discovered that it was “pouring the equivalent of several hundred thousand cases of product literally down the drain.”
“This is money out of our pocket, three times—first, when we buy the water from the municipal authority ...; second, when we filter and run it through our plant…; and third, when we pay the municipal authority to dump it back into the sewer system,” Isdell said at the time.
As the result of the audit, Coca-Cola tightened the production schedules in its Atlanta plants to reduce the number of flavor runs by about 20 percent, saving on water used for washing between runs, Witt says. The plants also use cleaned, recirculated water in cooling towers and holding tanks. Since 2005, the company has been able to save nearly 4 million gallons of water.